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While the year was fairly quiet for both I-73 and I-74 in North Carolina, with only continued construction and no new segment openings, there were some positive signs that funding had been found to accelerate several projects over the next several years.I-73
Work continued on the I-73 projects in the Greensboro area. The US 220 widening from the Haw River had both good news and bad news. The good news was the project surpassed the 50% completion mark during 2015, with the percentage finished reaching 56.5% at the end of the year. The bad news was that the project was supposed to be 92% complete. Therefore, NCDOT finally faced the facts of the delay in the work and pushed back the completion date from the end of 2016 to June 2017. The additional work on revamping the NC 68 interchange at the northern end of the project should be completed around the same time. Here's a couple photos from last January showing progress approaching the of the future interchange with US 158 and NC 65,…

The highway bill known as the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act) is passed and signed into law. The 1,305 page bill has a lot items to it and future impacts to transportation in North Carolina are inside the bill. This includes the creation of two new Interstate corridors and the extension of another. As for the numbering of the new corridors, I'll discuss in a later post.

High Priority Corridor 81:
The first is the creation of High Priority Corridor 81 - this lists as including US 117 and Interstate 795 and runs from US 70 in Goldsboro southwards to Interstate 40 in Faison. In short, this will extend I-795 from Goldsboro to I-40 in Faison. North Carolina has had on their agenda for numerous years making a freeway route from I-40 northwards to I-95 in Wilson. The current Interstate 795 is the north half of this.

The southern half consists of US 117. A number of steps are needed to make this section of US 117 and Interstate. First, US 117 from Goldsboro …